Union military setback. Sent by Charles A.
Dana an hour before the Army comman-
der wired his first news of the battle, it was
highlighted with such phrases as “Chicka-
mauga is as fatal a name in our history as
Bull Run.... Our soldiers turned and fled.
It was wholesale panic. Vain were the
attempts to rally them. Our wounded are
all left behind.... Enemy not yet arrived
before Chattanooga.”
Of the two preliminary statements, those
of Rosecrans and Dana, concerning thefight of September 19-20 outside Chat-
tanooga, Tenn., the latter was given more
attention and credibility. Charles A. Dana,
a former managing editor for Horace
Greeley’s New York Tribune, had found
favor with the secretary of war, Edwin M.
Stanton, early in the national conflict. A
supportive editorial Dana had penned in
1862 when Stanton was appointed to the
War Department earned the out-of-
worknewspaperman (he had been forced
to resign from the Tribunethat same year)first a job as Stanton’s personal aide, and
then his assistant secretary of war from
1863 to 1865. As such he was used as
what had been termed during the French
Revolution a Representative of the People
on Mission, or in the future Stalinist Rus-
sia, the People’s Commissar. And like his
French and Soviet equivalents, Dana roved
from Union army to Union army—first
U.S. Grant’s and then Rosecrans’, to keep
tabs on the officers assigned therein.
Regarded as a “bird of evil omen” by the
Northern officer corps, the assistant secre-
tary could make or break a soldier’s career
by the simple use of a pen or telegram.
Having an informer at his headquarters
was bad enough, but Rosecrans was
unaware of the animosity held toward him
by Secretary of War Stanton. Dating back
to early 1862 when Rosecrans dared to
advise the self-assured secretary on mat-
ters of national military strategy, and con-
tinuing during the former’s middle-Ten-
nessee campaign of 1863, Stanton
developed such a loathing for the Army
commander that he looked forward to any
opportunity to remove him from leader-
ship of the Army of the Cumberland. The
loss at Chickamauga, and a bold Confed-
erate cavalry raid thereafter—all under-
pinned by Dana’s increasingly scathing
opinion of Rosecrans’ fitness to lead any
friendly military force—would give Stan-
ton his chance.
By nightfall of September 20, 1863, the
last remnants of the once ever-victorious
Army of the Cumberland, now reduced to
about 35,000 effectives (from an original
force of 58,000), slipped away from the
bloody field of Chickamauga in northern
Georgia and into the entrenchments sur-
rounding Chattanooga 10 miles north-
west. Not until two days later did the
Rebel Army of Tennessee, reduced from a
pre-Chickamauga strength of about
66,000 men to 47,500, advance to the
gates of the city. It should have been no
surprise that the Army of Tennessee tamely
and slowly followed up its victory at
Chickamauga, for its leader was Braxton
Bragg.
Naturally disputatious, and driven byAll: National ArchivesTOP LEFT: Braxton Bragg. TOP RIGHT: Joseph Wheeler. BOTTOM LEFT: Charles A. Dana. BOTTOM RIGHT: William
Rosecrans. OPPOSITE: Federals hold their position on the last day of the Battle of Chickamauga, but they
eventually retired to Chattanooga and tried to endure a siege.CWQ-Sum16 Wheeler's Raid_Layout 1 4/20/16 5:18 PM Page 56